updated 05:55 pm EDT, Tue August 23, 2011

Needs more 3rd party apps to attract buyers

Microsoft is now ready to accept apps from developers for its upcoming Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) release. The company has let developers know through an update on its developer blog that the system for submitting apps is now up and running. Accordingly, a release candidate SDK download is available so that programmers can compile their apps to adapt to the final version of Mango and test it to make sure it works.

This much awaited OS release should help bring Microsoft closer to par with rivals with multitasking, HTML5 support, Twitter integration, and other features that iOS and Android based devices already have had for awhile or will be getting shortly. But to be really successful, Windows Phone devices must be able to match the extensive library of apps already available for these other OS environments. For this, Microsoft must rely on apps from third party developers.